He steadied instantly to her mood.
"Are you sorry for him?" he asked.
Boy looked away, shy and wary.
"Sometimes," she said. "He must have had a pig's time to be so rotten as that."
It was a new view to the young man, and sobered him.
"Perhaps," he said doubtfully. He was thinking out the question in his slow way. "It may be his own fault," he said. "You make yourself, I think."
"Part," answered the girl. "And part you are made by your surroundings. That's the way with young stock anyhow. It's a bit how they are bred—the blood in them; and part the food they get, and the air and liberty and sun they're allowed."
"I suppose so," said Silver quietly. "Certainly our friend's food don't seem to have suited him."
The girl refused to be amused.
"He's come down," she said. "Mr. Haggard says he was once a gentleman."